The Third Generation Partnership Project (“3GPP”) is an international association of telecommunications network operators and manufacturers hosted by the International Telecommunications Union (“ITU”) to develop and evolve standards for mobile communications systems. The standards developed by the 3GPP have evolved from standards developed for the Global System for Mobile Communications (“GSM”). A GSM system is primarily a mobile communication system employing digital techniques for signaling, speech and data. The wide international deployment of GSM has enabled subscribers to use their mobile telephones in many parts of the world.
A GSM network employs a variant of phase-shift keying (“PSK”) with time division multiple access (“TDMA”) signaling over frequency division duplex (“FDD”) carriers. The GSM standards have evolved to include short message service (“SMS,” also referred to as text messaging), packet data capabilities, and higher speed data transmission using Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (“EDGE”).
Design details of the GSM/EDGE are generally provided in the 3GPP Technical Specification (“TS”) 45 series issued by the 3GPP. For example, the physical layer specification produced by the GSM/EDGE Technical Specification Group is described in 3GPP TS 45.001 entitled “Radio Access Network; Physical Layer on the Radio Path; General Description,” Release 9, dated May 2009, and the modulation specification is provided in 3GPP TS 45.004 entitled “Radio Access Network; Modulation,” Release 8, dated December 2008. The overall network architecture is described in 3GPP TS 23.002 entitled “Network Architecture,” Release 9, dated June 2009, and an extensive list of technical specifications for GSM systems is given in 3GPP TS 41.101, entitled “Technical Specifications and Technical Reports for a GERAN-Based 3GPP System,” Release 8, dated June 2009. The aforementioned specifications and others provided herein are incorporated herein by reference.
The GSM network in 3GPP includes network communication elements providing user plane (including packet data convergence protocol/radio link control/medium access control/physical sublayers) and control plane protocol terminations towards wireless communication devices such as cellular telephones. A network communication element such as a base station is an access entity of a communication network, and the term will generally refer to equipment providing the wireless-network interface in a cellular telephone system, including cellular telephone systems other than those designed under 3GPP standards. A wireless communication device or terminal is generally known as a mobile station (“MS”) or as a user equipment (“UE”).
Due to uncontrolled circumstances in the operation of a local area network, such as local interference that may be due to unintentional jamming by another radio system operating in the same area or a change in a particular band of frequencies employed by an access point (“AP”) in the local area network, a mobile station may not have access to the local area network. During a period of time of non-network use, such as a period of time out of normal working hours or a period of time during which a member of a family is away from home, an efficient power-save operation may be employed at the access point and at the mobile station. The mobile station that enters the serving area of a local area network may not be able to access, initiate communication with or connect to the local area network due to a lack of an access authorization such as an access key. Thus, the mobile station may not be able to access the local area network (in the case of jamming or due to lack of an access key), or the mobile station may have to do a time- and energy-consuming search for the local area network when the local area network changes an operational parameter such as a frequency band or a channel within the band.
In view of the growing deployment and sensitivity of users to communication performance in local and wide area networks, further improvements are necessary for handling a mobile station's access to a local area network. Therefore, what is needed in the art is an apparatus, system and method for providing access to a local area network for a mobile station operable in a wide area network that overcomes the deficiencies of conventional communication systems.